by Gaelen Foley
“I have no idea what you are referring to.”
“Don’t pretend not to know my meaning, or what I’ve done for you. It’s time to pay the piper, my fine fellow.”
Dresden Bloodwell walked out of the shadows.
Albert backed away. His heart was thudding in his chest. “I never asked you to kill my brother!”
“Don’t waste my time,” the stranger mocked him. “You knew exactly what I intended to do, and as I recall, you uttered not one word of protest. So be quiet. Don’t forget, Your Grace, you still have three younger brothers. I’m happy to keep going through the lot of you, until I get to one who will finally cooperate. Now, I suggest that if you wish to keep your miserable life and your nice new dukedom, you sit down, shut up, and do exactly as you’re told.”
He reached out without warning and clutched him by the throat. Albert whimpered, trying to dislodge the unrelenting hand.
Inches from his face, the killer stared into Albert’s eyes. Bloodwell’s own were as black as doom, and as deep as a bottomless well.
“You listen to me. I elevated you to this post for a reason. I own you now. And that’s the way it is—Your Grace. Forget that at your own cost.” With this, he shoved Albert down into the nearby leather club chair and proceeded to explain.
“What do you want from me?” Albert whispered, his whole body shaking.
“It’s very simple,” Dresden replied as he tugged his sleeve back neatly into place. “You bragged when I first met you that you are an acquaintance of the Regent. It’s time for you to strengthen that friendship. Now that you are a duke, you should have no trouble working your way into the Carlton House set…”
Outside his door in the Pulteney Hotel, Drake could hear James and Talon engaged in a none-too-friendly conversation with the convict they had gotten out of Newgate. O’Banyon was his name. Some sort of privateer.
“It’s done now,” O’Banyon was saying. “The girl has been secured.”
“You got her?” Talon asked urgently.
“Aye. It was not difficult.”
“So, where is she? You were supposed to bring her here,” James said in a tone of indignation.
“Aye, I thought of that,” O’Banyon answered with a note of impudence in his rough voice. “But then it dawned on me. Once you gentl’men get the girl, you don’t have much need for me, now, do you? I weren’t about to take any chance o’ you sendin’ me back to prison once I served my purpose.”
“What have you done with her?” James demanded.
“I told you, she’s secured.”
“You’ve brought in help, without our authorization?”
“No worries! Just some of my old mates from my seafarin’ days. We’re going to do this my way.”
“How dare you!”
“Listen to me, old man.”
Drake tensed behind the door, wanting to go to James’s aid if O’Banyon was threatening him.
“You don’t seem to realize that you need me,” the cutthroat convict said. “Especially when her father comes back in from the sea to pay her ransom. You may think you’re a bad fellow, Eye-Patch, but you’ve never dealt with the likes o’ Captain Fox. Why do you think he had his little girl livin’ in seclusion? You steal a pirate’s treasure, that is bad enough,” O’Banyon warned. “You kidnap his daughter, and there’ll be hell to pay. Trust me, I’m the only one who has a clue how to handle her papa, and he’s the one who knows where the Alchemist’s tomb is.”
“So, what do you suggest we do, then, hm?” James inquired, sounding like he was losing patience.
“We wait, mainly. Just like we have to do at sea. It’ll be awhile before the message reaches her father, and more time still for the old Sea Fox to get back to England. Not to mention the fact that the Coast Guard will be wantin’ to arrest him the moment he sets foot on English soil. In the meantime, I, for one, intend to go enjoy me freedom.”
Through the crack in the door, Drake saw Talon grab the grubby O’Banyon by the shirt. “You think you can succeed in double-crossing us?”
“Take your hands off me, Eye-Patch. To get to the Alchemist’s treasure, you need Captain Fox; and to bring in Captain Fox, you need his pretty daughter. And to get your hands on the girl, you need me, seein’ as I’m the only one who knows where the lovely lass is stowed at the moment.”
James nodded to Talon.
He, in turn, released O’Banyon angrily.
“I wouldn’t agitate Mr. Talon if I were you, O’Banyon. He’s killed men for much less, I can assure you.”
“Well, so have I, old fellow. Believe me. So have I.”
“At least tell me that Miss Fox is safe. She is of no worth as a hostage if she’s dead.”
“Aye, safe enough. Young Miss Kate ain’t too comfortable, I warrant, but she ain’t in any danger.”
“You trust whoever’s holding her, then?”
O’Banyon grinned. “Frankly, gov, I don’t trust nobody.”
The girl sat huddled and shivering on a cold stone floor, sightless behind the black blindfold tied around her head. Her hands were also tied, her wrists bound before her, resting on her bent knees.
Kate refused to cry, forcing herself to focus her available senses on whatever she could glean. Heavy tromping footfalls paced above her. Rough voices, mainly male. Busy warehouse. People shuffling boxes or crates around upstairs. What were they? Not ordinary merchants.
Smugglers?
The hint of salt that hung on the cold air took her memory back to ages and ages ago, the rocking masts against the azure sky. Her father’s bold grin as he made a little bo’sun out of her, telling her the orders to shout to the crew in her high-pitched, child’s voice. Trim the topsail, you lazy buggers! Steady as she goes!
Suddenly, she heard a door creak up at the top of the wooden stairs above the clammy cellar where her captors had deposited her. Someone was coming. Kate sat very still, listening for all she was worth.
She had heard them talking before, but now their voices sounded unexpectedly agitated.
“I don’t give a damn what O’Banyon said! If the duke’s on his way home, that changes everything!”
“What are we goin’ to do?”
“I don’t know, but we got to rid of her before Warrington gets back!”
“What do you mean, get rid of her? Do we kill her? Let her go?”
Kate drew in her breath, listening keenly. Quite a choice. She could barely hear above the pounding of her heart.
There was a silence.
“I don’t know,” one of the smugglers answered. He seemed to be the one in charge. “We could tell O’Banyon the lass got away.”
“But the money!”
“Who would you rather cross, O’Banyon or the Beast?”
Beast? she thought in rising panic.
“Well, that’s no contest.”
“Tell me about it!”
“I wish we’d had more warning that His Grace was comin’ home.”
“He was bound to come eventually. He owns this bloody place for miles around.”
“What are we goin’ to do with her once he gets here? That oversized devil’s already goin’ to roast us alive for the shipwreck last month. If he hears that now we been party to a kidnappin’…”
“Aye,” the first said grimly. “Well…maybe there’s a way we can kill two birds with one stone.”
“What do you mean?”
“If O’Banyon wants the lass, let him deal with the Duke of Warrington.”
“You mean…hand the girl over to the Beast?”
“Aye! Like a little present. You know, a little welcome-home package from us and the boys, eh?”
“Aye, that’s brilliant! Then maybe he won’t bash our heads in quite so much!”
“That’s what I’m sayin’! She’s pretty enough for ’im. You know how he is with the ladies. A welcome-home gift like her ought to take some of the hammer out of his wrath.”
“Right, and playin’ with her, at least th
at’ll keep him preoccupied for a night or two while we wrap up our business.”
“It might work.”
“Ye hear that, girlie? Handful o’ trouble, you are,” the leader said, no doubt still swollen and sore in the groin where she had kicked him upon her arrival. “See how far it gets you with the Beast! You try givin’ him your sass, and you’re goin’ to wish you was back down ’ere in this cellar.”
“Aw, don’t cry, lass,” the other mocked her. “There’s worse things than becomin’ the Beast’s concubine. ’Course, I can’t think of any right now…”
Her head reeled as the smugglers’ coarse laughter echoed all around her in the darkness. Her whole body was shivering with dread.
I’m not afraid, Kate thought over and over again. I’m not afraid…
About the Author
GAELEN FOLEY is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. A Pennsylvania native, Gaelen holds a B.A. in English literature with a minor in philosophy from SUNY Fredonia. It was here, while studying the Romantic poets, such as Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats, that she first fell in love with the Regency period in which her novels are set. Gaelen Foley lives near Pittsburgh, with her college-sweetheart husband, Eric, and a spoiled bichon frise named Bubble. Visit her website at www.gaelenfoley.com.
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By Gaelen Foley
MY WICKED MARQUESS
Coming Soon
MY DANGEROUS DUKE
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MY WICKED MARQUESS. Copyright © 2009 by Gaelen Foley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition May 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-193329-5
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title page
Epigraph
Contents
September 1, 1815
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by Gaelen Foley
Copyright
About the Publisher
Table of Contents
Cover
Title page
Epigraph
Contents
September 1, 1815
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by Gaelen Foley
Copyright
About the Publisher